Community Manager

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P: Introducing the Project Indigo camera app

Forum|Forum|8 months ago
May 23, 2025
361 replies
232558 views

This post applies to the Project Indigo iOS camera app.

Adobe Labs is excited to share an early look at Project Indigo, an iPhone camera app we've started to develop, to get feedback from the photography community. The app offers full manual controls, a more natural ("SLR-like") look, and high image quality in both JPEG and raw formats. It also introduces some new photographic experiences not available in other camera apps. For more information on the underlying technology, please refer to this Project Indigo blog post.

Before you start with Project Indigo

We recommend using Project Indigo on iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max or newer devices.
(Also supported are 12 Pro/Pro Max, 13 Pro/Pro Max, and all 14-series devices.)

You should have at least 1GB of storage space left for the app, the downloadable AI Models inside the app, and for captured photos.

Download the app from the App Store.
Check out the Project Indigo FAQ, which is updated regularly with new explanations.

Recipes for success when using Project Indigo

To get the maximum out of your images captured with the app, follow these guidelines:

When reviewing the results, focus on Project Indigo's more natural look (in both SDR and HDR). If you haven’t done this before, try viewing the images on your laptop or desktop device, preferably on an HDR screen.

Capture with both JPEG and raw DNGs with file saving enabled. Project Indigo produces computational photography DNG files, which have the same natural look as JPEG images, but much more latitude for editing after capture.

Take control of the camera with the built-in Pro Controls, including controls that are exclusive to a computational camera: Frames to Merge and Merge Method. These may be intimidating for beginners, but with Project Indigo, you can try them for free, and nothing will break—you can always reset the settings to ‘Auto’ and let the camera take back control.

Go to the Indigo Labs page and play with the latest innovations our team can offer. These are only available on mobile via Indigo!

Be patient! Project Indigo is doing a lot of heavy lifting under the hood, and it will reward you with great photos. In return, it may ask you for a bit of time to set up captures when needed, and to wait a few seconds for the image processing to finish.

Sending feedback

Please try the app and share feedback in this community forum thread. If you report a problem you encountered, it would help to include details like which device you are running Project Indigo on, what kind of scene you were trying to capture, what you were trying to achieve with the camera, and as much information as possible about what you like or do not like about the resulting photo quality. Our team will continually monitor this thread to track issues and improve future experiences.

To improve the performance and results of Project Indigo, it is important that examples of images that do not meet your expectations are forwarded to the team via your report. A large variety of file formats are allowed as attachments in these forum posts. The best option is to attach your image's raw file directly to your feedback post. Note that there is a 50 MB limit on an attachment's file size. If your raw file is too large to attach, the best option is to share the file via a file-sharing service (Dropbox or similar) and then share the link in your feedback post. Thank you for continuing to provide feedback on the Project Indigo camera!

Boris Ajdin: Product Manager, NextCam

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jimf16377877

Known Participant

I love Project Indigo on my iphone 16 Pro. I wish there was a setting to capture just the DNG's without the JPEGS. When I download the images via Bridge (import from device) I have to go through and select just the DNG files, which is an extra step it would be nice to be able to avoid.

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BorisTheBlade

Adobe Employee

Hello - thank you for your feedback. DNG-only capture is on our roadmap and we'll have an updated release supporting this as soon as it is ready.

E

elias_6024

Participant

In the introduction article about indigo, it is written that you plan to add video recording, including some cool computational video features you're cooking up in the lab. This is why I would like to propose both photos and video features.

I would absolutely suggest you to add open gate recording to be able to record 4:3 video and use the whole sensor of the iPhone. Also, an option to use mireds instead of Kelvin for the color temperature would be welcomed, in both photo and video mode. Finally, when using 0.5x mode, a lot of distorsion typically appear on the edge, it can be corrected using a similar approach as the one described in this article, where a different projection algorithm is used for faces and building https://people.csail.mit.edu/yichangshih/wide_angle_portrait/

B

BorisTheBlade

Adobe Employee

In the introduction article about indigo, it is written that you plan to add video recording, including some cool computational video features you're cooking up in the lab. This is why I would like to propose both photos and video features.

I would absolutely suggest you to add open gate recording to be able to record 4:3 video and use the whole sensor of the iPhone. Also, an option to use mireds instead of Kelvin for the color temperature would be welcomed, in both photo and video mode. Finally, when using 0.5x mode, a lot of distorsion typically appear on the edge, it can be corrected using a similar approach as the one described in this article, where a different projection algorithm is used for faces and building https://people.csail.mit.edu/yichangshih/wide_angle_portrait/

By @elias_6024

Hi Elias - thank you for your interest in Indigo. We are indeed considering the best ways to explore adding video to Indigo. Your suggestions definitely make sense and we'll take them into consideration.

G

gnshksvr

Participant

Pi immediately replaced the default camera app for me. One thing I'm wondering is that I always see a crossed out and red HDR sign when displaying images on the filmstrip. iPhone 15 Pro. I wonder why that is.

B

BorisTheBlade

Adobe Employee

Hello - thank you for trying Project Indigo and for your feedback. The red crossed HDR icon indicates that the display doesn't have enough headroom to show HDR content properly. This can be due to a variety of reasons, including being in bright environments, device overheating, device being in low power mode, etc.

O

Oliver22030158mjzk

Participant

Ich finde, das Programm ist sehr gut. Ich würde mir wünschen, dass es auch in Deutsch geben wird.

I think the program is very good. I would like it to be available in German as well.

B

BorisTheBlade

Adobe Employee

Hallo Oliver - vielen Dank für Ihr Feedback. Wir planen, in Zukunft Unterstützung für Internationalisierung in das Projekt Indigo zu integrieren.

PS

I speak some German, but on this I relied on ChatGPT to translate. 🙂

I

indigo411

Participant

Overall having a good experience.

the look is overly processed - would be nice to tune strength. Alternatively, need to add digital grain.

since we're doing all this processing, would be cool to see film sims like Fuji.

N

nhan_8084

Participating Frequently

I have done more tests with 2x and 10x. The 2x is ok but I guess still have too much denoising applied! The 10x is outright heavily denoised vs apple's own 10x albeit it theirs have more oversharpening and noisier but weird noises. PI still experiences artifacts with motion/and or merging artifacts.

H

HughOfBardfield

Participant

And once again, Adobe ignores Android users and prioritises Crapple.

C

chubby_puppy

Participating Frequently

The way I see it: if you're a Google Pixel user then your phone already have a camera of similar quality as Indigo. Or you have another brand with a GCam port installed.
I have an old Nokia 7 Plus with official LineageOS 22.2 and a variant of GCam with manually adjustable (and 'switch-off-able'!) noise reduction and sharpening and it beats Apple's camera on my iPhone 15 Pro Max IMHO.

N

nhan_8084

Participating Frequently

@BorisTheBlade I took a before and after of the 2x and 10x super res as I saw the update changelog said super res day and night have better details, but I am seeing the same! Also it is 90F currently, phone was in pocket, I was standing under shade, no more than 10 minutes after taking before and installing update, the 1.0.2 version gave me overheat. I also noticed the 10x outdoor got very very shaky after that overheat message, and the viewfinder screen dimmed greatly! Seems like it turned off eis or ois even! The indoor also looks very bad compare to apple stock 10x zoom after the update.

N

nhan_8084

Participating Frequently

154 and 000 is version 1.0.1

P

powerful_Elixir5E29

Participating Frequently

Tried the new updated version and while the heating issue and speed is somewhat improved it still makes the phone drain battery very fast when taking and processing photos and is still nowhere near google camera hdr+ level of efficiency and speed. I hope the team manages to fix those issues in the near future.

A

ansley_9597

Participant

Hi I am using the app with a iphone 14 bought from South Korea. I dunno why but the shutter sound goes crazy as soon i open the app even though i didnt press the shutter to take a photo. Is it just me or is it normal?

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